"My sweet girl," replied Reginald, "know you not that, throughout my career, I have from the pulpit denounced the practice of a man in holy orders marrying, and that I have more than once declared—solemnly declared—my intention of remaining single upon principle? You would not wish me to commit an inconsistency which might throw a suspicion upon my whole life?"
"Then, sir, by what right do you presume that I will compromise my fair fame for your sake, if you tremble to sacrifice your reputation for mine?" asked Ellen. "Is every compromise to be effected by poor woman, and shall man make no sacrifice for her? Are you vile, or base, or cowardly enough to ask me to desert home and friends to gratify your selfish passion, while you carefully shroud your weakness beneath the hypocritical cloak of a reputed sanctity? Was it to hear such language as this that I agreed to meet you? But know, sir, that you have greatly—oh! greatly mistaken me! By the most unmanly—the most disgraceful means you endeavoured to wring from me, a few days ago, a secret which certain expressions of mine, incautiously uttered over what I conceived to be my father's death-bed, had perhaps made you more than half suspect. Those words, which escaped me in a moment of bitter anguish, you treasured up, and converted them into the text for a sermon which you preached me."
"Ellen," murmured the rector; "why these reproaches?"
"Oh! why these reproaches?—I will tell you," continued the young lady, whose bosom palpitated violently beneath the dualma. "Do you think that you did well to press me to reveal the secret of my shame? Do you think that you adopted an honourable means to discover it? When you addressed me in that saintly manner—a manner which I now know to have been that of a vile hypocrisy—I actually believed you to be sincere; for the time I fancied that a man of God was offering me consolation. Nevertheless, think you that my feelings were not wounded? But an accident made you acquainted with that truth which you vainly endeavoured to extort from me! And now you perhaps believe that I cannot read your heart. Oh! I can fathom its depths but too well. You cherish the idea that because I have been frail once, I am fair game for a licentious sportsman like you. You are wrong, sir—you are wrong. I never erred but once—but once, mark you;—and then not through passion—nor through love—nor in a moment of surprise. I erred deliberately—no matter why. The result was the child whom you have seen. But never, never will I err more—no, not even though tempted, as I have been, by the father of my child! You sent to me a messenger—the same filthy hag who pandered to my first, my only disgrace,—you sent her as your herald of love. Ah! sir, you must have already plunged into ways at variance with the sanctity of your character—or you could not have known her! I told her—as I now assure you—that I do not affect a virtue which I possess not;—but if I henceforth remain pure and chaste, it is because I am a mother—because I love my child—because I will keep myself worthy of the respect of him who is the father of that child, should God ever move his heart towards me. Say then that I am virtuous upon calculation—I care not: still I am virtuous!"
The individual in the garb of the Greek Bandit drew a pace or two nearer as these words met his ears.
Neither the rector nor Ellen observed that he was paying any attention to them: on the contrary, he appeared to be entirely occupied in contemplating the dancers from beneath his impervious mask.
"Ellen, what means all this?" asked Reginald: "are you angry with me? You alarm me!"
"Suffer me to proceed, that you may understand me fully," said Ellen. "You mercilessly sought to cover me with humiliation, when you rudely probed that wound in my heart, the existence of which an unguarded expression of mine had revealed to you. Your conduct was base—was cowardly; and, as a woman, I eagerly embraced the opportunity to avenge myself."
"To avenge yourself!" faltered Reginald, nearly sinking with terror as these words fell upon his ears.
"Yes—to avenge myself," repeated Ellen hastily. "When your messenger—that vile agent of crime—proposed to me that I should grant you an interview, I bethought myself of this ball which I had seen announced in the newspapers. It struck me that if I could induce you—you, the man of sanctity—to clothe yourself in the mummery of a mask and meet me at a scene which you and your fellow-ecclesiastics denounce as one worthy of Satan, I should hurl back with tenfold effect that deep, deep humiliation which you visited upon me. It was for this that I made the appointment here to-night—for this that I retired early to my chamber, and thence stole forth unknown to my father and my benefactor—for this that I now form one at an assembly which has no charms for me! My intention was to seize an opportunity to tear your disguise from you, and allow all present to behold amongst them the immaculate rector of Saint David's. But I will be more merciful to you than you were to me: I will not inflict upon you that last and most poignant humiliation!"